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   as a credit card. They’d come 1 millimeter, Walls said, from disaster.   
      
   The U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee took note of   
   the derailment and asked the Government Accountability Office to study the   
   safety and impacts of long trains. The committee’s two ranking members   
   hadn’t even signed the letter before CSX derailed another long train in   
   Georgia, just two months after Hyndman.   
      
   It was 2.4 miles long, and like the Hyndman train, a bulk of its tonnage   
   had been loaded in the rear. When the engineer began to brake, the back of   
   the train slid forward and shoved a car ahead of it off the tracks on a   
   curve, and 13 other cars followed. One car crashed into a home and the   
   person inside was rushed to a hospital. The man survived. CSX did not   
   comment on this accident but did tell ProPublica the company is committed   
   to operating safely and is constantly evaluating its rules, specifically   
   on train handling. See what else it said about its safety practices here.   
      
   It was only after all of this happened that the FRA, in March 2018,   
   replied to the union officials who had expressed concerns that previous   
   spring. In a letter, the agency said it “began looking at the length of   
   trains as a potential contributing cause of FRA reportable   
   accidents/incidents” in 2016. The agency still did not have “the   
   sufficient data or evidence to justify an Emergency Order limiting the   
   length of trains.”   
      
   In May 2019, the GAO completed its study, coming to a similar conclusion:   
   long trains may be dangerous, but more information was needed. Its effort   
   was partly stymied, the GAO said, because most rail companies refused to   
   hand over enough of their private train-length data to allow investigators   
   to make findings. The FRA also told ProPublica it has asked companies for   
   this data but never gotten it.   
      
   On Thursday, the FRA told ProPublica it is starting the process of   
   requiring companies to disclose the train length for every reportable   
   accident, a move prompted by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.   
   But there is no guarantee the regulators will succeed. The FRA said it   
   first needs to publish a notice of the new data-collection effort and   
   ultimately the Office of Management and Budget would need to approve the   
   measure.   
      
   Had the FRA issued an emergency order as the union requested in 2017, a   
   rare and extreme step, the railroads would have likely gotten a judge to   
   block it, said Cothen, author of the white paper on longer trains. He   
   acknowledged that most of the long trains in the country arrive at their   
   destinations without incident, but he feels the railroads are operating   
   with an unreasonable degree of risk. He believes the FRA has the evidence   
   it needs to start crafting a rule to limit train lengths, a process that   
   would include input from the industry. “My issue to this point,” Cothen   
   said, “has been that effective action has not been taken.” The FRA says it   
   disagrees.   
      
   Across the country, worried state lawmakers have tried to cap the lengths   
   of trains that roll through their communities. Since 2019, in Arkansas,   
   Iowa, Kansas, Georgia, Nebraska, Washington, Arizona and other states,   
   lawmakers have proposed maximum lengths of 1.4 to about 1.6 miles. But   
   every proposal has died before becoming law. Opponents, which include   
   Class 1 railroad companies, claim that the efforts are driven by unions to   
   create jobs and that the proposals would violate interstate commerce laws.   
      
   Georgia state Sen. Rick Williams, a Republican, attempted to work around   
   this angst by offering a simple resolution last year that would have urged   
   the FRA to limit train length. Even that died. “It’s frustrating,” he   
   said, “when you see something that happens, like in East Palestine, Ohio,   
   and you know it very easily could happen here and we could suffer the same   
   consequences.”   
      
   Democratic Arizona state Rep. Consuelo Hernandez’s bill to limit train   
   length was approved by two committees this session with bipartisan   
   support. But Republicans refuse to put the bill on the floor for a general   
   vote, and so it has stalled. ProPublica spoke with her the day after a   
   1.9-mile-long BNSF train derailed there. “The train companies are so   
   powerful,” Hernandez said. “What it comes down to is public safety versus   
   corporations.”   
      
   Many states have passed laws that would punish railroads for blocking road   
   crossings, but that power, state courts rule every time, rests solely with   
   the federal government.   
      
   At any moment, Congress could intervene and limit the length of trains. If   
   it did, independent experts say, there’d be more trains, moving faster   
   with fewer breakdowns and derailments, and customer service would improve.   
   But the rail companies, which move 40% of the country’s cargo, have a lot   
   of leverage. For more than a century, the industry has convinced lawmakers   
   that the success of America is tied to the success of the rails; it’s a   
   view that persists today, sustained by the $10 million the Association of   
   American Railroads spends some years lobbying Congress.   
      
   So long trains have continued jumping the tracks.   
      
   In June 2019, one month after the inconclusive GAO study, a 2.2-mile-long   
   Union Pacific train derailed in Nevada. It was so long and the terrain so   
   mountainous that at times sections of the train climbed uphill while other   
   sections climbed downhill, which made driving it a nightmare. Ultimately   
   the engineer couldn’t manage it, and the train lifted a car up and dropped   
   it on the ground. Twenty-seven cars followed.   
      
   In July, a 2.5-mile-long Union Pacific train derailed for the same reasons   
   elsewhere in Nevada.   
      
   In August, a 1.6-mile-long Union Pacific train going 48 miles an hour   
   derailed in Texas. The company ran computer simulations after the crash   
   and concluded it never should have been operating the long train at that   
   speed at that spot on the tracks.   
      
   In September, Union Pacific crashed yet another long train. It was 1.5   
   miles long and broke in two in Illinois. Half of the train rolled out of   
   control away from the other half. It then slowed, stopped and began   
   rolling back. The two halves collided and exploded. The fire spread   
   underground through a storm drain and ignited a holding pond at a chemical   
   plant. More than 1,000 residents and at least 1,000 schoolchildren were   
   evacuated.   
      
   And then in October, in separate instances, Norfolk Southern derailed two   
   long trains, both in Georgia. One was 2 miles long. The engineer had   
   struggled to control it, and his use of the brakes caused the rear of the   
   train to run into the front and lift a car off the tracks. The other train   
   was 1.6 miles long. Its autopilot had the brakes applied in the front and   
   the engine in the middle giving it gas, and as it reached the bottom of a   
   hill the opposing forces popped 32 cars off the tracks. They ruptured a   
   pipeline, which released nearly 2.3 million gallons of natural gas.   
      
   The following summer, in June 2020, a 2.3-mile-long Union Pacific train   
   derailed in Idaho because it was too big, the FRA determined. It was   
   constructed unevenly with 34 empty cars coupled near the front and loaded,   
   heavy cars behind them. The heavy cars pushed the light cars off the   
   tracks. The FRA also determined the engineer lacked the training necessary   
   to operate a train of that length.   
      
   In July 2020, a 2-mile-long BNSF train derailed in Arizona for similar   
   reasons: a long block of heavy cars coupled behind a set of empty cars   
   squeezed them off the tracks.   
      
      
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